"What makes literature interesting is that it does not survive its translation. The characters in a novel are made out of the sentences. That's what their substance is"

"A lawyer without history or literature is a mechanic, a mere working mason; if he possesses some knowledge of these, he may venture to call himself an architect"

"I don't know which is more discouraging, literature or chickens"

"The decline of literature indicates the decline of a nation"

"The truest characters of ignorance are vanity and pride and arrogance"

"Wealth stays with us a little moment if at all: only our characters are steadfast, not our gold"

"Characters do not change. Opinions alter, but characters are only developed"

"What is wonderful about great literature is that it transforms the man who reads it towards the condition of the man who wrote"

"Facts are not science - as the dictionary is not literature"

"Homer's whole language, the language in which he lived, the language that he breathed, because he never saw it, or certainly those who formed his tradition never saw it, in characters on the pages. It was all on the tongue and in the ear"

"Literature is about as unnecessarily necessarily as tableware or ironed shirts"